It costs $480 in Japan and $400 to non-Japan, sounds better than the famous $850 2-xs (which was the only high-end custom IEM a few years ago, along with the UE something) and it's the most customizable IEM (tuning, 8 colours, cable length, termination, hard-case size, hard-case colour) etc.

Oh yeah and it's made in Japan so it's only natural it's in the "made in Japan" pricing category (Stax, for instance).

They could start making the J-phonic in Thailand but then they'd have to call it the Thai-phonic.

Somehow I dont think i'd be all that excited about it if that were the name. Thats just me being superficial, of course. But still...it just DOES NOT sound nice.

I currently own a set of Brainwavz PhoAlpha IEMs, which supplanted a set of Sennheiser CX400s. To my very untrained and limited hearing, the difference was extremely noticeable, particularly regarding clarity, bass, range of tones (that's soundstage, I guess?) and much less need to drive up the volume setting on my players. Now, feeling wanderlust, I want to move up to Tier 3C. After sifting through it a couple of times, I settled on either the Head-Direct RE0s or the Fischer Audio Eternas. They clearly have very different approaches, but I was not able to discern which one would be the natural third step in my IEM evolution. Therefore, any comments to help clarify this (or even suggest more suitable alternatives) are most definitely welcome.

I think the CX8 is around $830 IIRC... or even less... which is like the LS8 (same designer I believe) except it has a two sub-bass drivers instead of two super-tweeter drivers, so it's basically like a JH16... however I read once that you can opt for the super-tweeter drivers instead, in which case it becomes an LS8? It's kinda confusing, but hey... the kitten and lion analogy, it's really appealing right? I know what you mean, when I started with my first "real" purchase buying a headphone for $300 I thought that was a bit absurd, then after a while you get used to the prices around here and just want to take the next step all the time, $1000 including impressions is the absolute maximum for me too, after that and it's simply not portable, at all.

Updated some of the pricing & added download link for the chart in post #8 (thanks again to carfentanil for putting it together).

Quote:

Originally Posted by TwoSongs

I currently own a set of Brainwavz PhoAlpha IEMs, which supplanted a set of Sennheiser CX400s. To my very untrained and limited hearing, the difference was extremely noticeable, particularly regarding clarity, bass, range of tones (that's soundstage, I guess?) and much less need to drive up the volume setting on my players. Now, feeling wanderlust, I want to move up to Tier 3C. After sifting through it a couple of times, I settled on either the Head-Direct RE0s or the Fischer Audio Eternas. They clearly have very different approaches, but I was not able to discern which one would be the natural third step in my IEM evolution. Therefore, any comments to help clarify this (or even suggest more suitable alternatives) are most definitely welcome.

High sensitivity (lower volume requirement) is not always a good thing. If you are willing to step towards a more balanced sound from your ProAlpha, go for the RE0. If you find the bass of the ProAlpha barely sufficient, or lacking, go for the Eterna. You could also try something in between, like a Brainwavz M3 or Spider realvoice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaixax555

Have been lurking for quite a while and I have to say your reviews are really great bro

Nice pricing update, prices have been changing a lot in the IEM world so this makes sense. Perhaps something that can denote if the IEM has been discontinued will also be useful instead of the NA in the pricing, to see where they stood. I don't think the C3 or HJE900s are being produced anymore and thus the high pricing, but there are still new ones available.

OT, but Headdirect's RE252 pricing makes no sense as it's priced higher than the RE262 and almost hitting the RE272 level. Something like 125$ makes a lot more sense

High sensitivity (lower volume requirement) is not always a good thing. If you are willing to step towards a more balanced sound from your ProAlpha, go for the RE0. If you find the bass of the ProAlpha barely sufficient, or lacking, go for the Eterna. You could also try something in between, like a Brainwavz M3 or Spider realvoice.

...

In what cases would high sensitivity not be a good thing? Does having that imply that some of the other qualities must suffer for it?

As for your recommendation: heh, it figures I would choose alternatives that don't quite fit with my criteria.

The bass on the ProAlphas seem to be just right, actually. The first choice were the RE0s, but since you described them as maybe too analytical or dry I wanted to check a "fun" alternative to it....how do you think the RE0s would perform for movies and gaming, compared to the ProAlphas?